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4 Sobering Observations About ISIS
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Great article! Hit the like button!
When something tragic happens on the show I often say to my husband, “They should have stayed at the CDC.” I’m commenting to note that the only one who did stay was a Christian. She chose eternal life over the life the others are living now. I just found it interesting that it was the Christian, and only the Christian, who stayed and died painlessly.
Right, but in the context of my analogy, I view that person as giving up and surrendering to the evil forces instead of seeking to overcome and survive. I also don’t remember her being explicitly a Jesus-follower.
Great article Frank! We haven’t watched, bu may have to “binge” on it soon. We have also noticed so many spiritual themes in current shows. People are hungry for spiritual needs to be met and for community. Keep writing dear brother and we are SO blessed by The Deeper Christian Life Network!
Paul and Joy
Number 2 was very convicting and I know I need to clean up this area in my life. Thank you. It is spot on…but only if I apply the lesson to myself first. Thank you again. And so grateful for grace and mercy.
Wow! This is excellent writing and observations, Frank. Now you have encouraged me to go watch this show. Hahaha. Thank you for this powerful lesson. It caused me to take an inner look at myself.
Frank your insight is very freshing and dead on….pun intended!
I have been watching this show since its inception. It’s an honest attempt to show who people are in a survival mode. If you watch the afterglow “The Talking Dead” show, you will hear from fans and writers what their premise’s are for each show. Many of the points you made have been discussed . I’m convinced that God gives pre-believers themes and concepts that they put to film, because believers are too uptight about their own reputations or associations with “godless” people? Really? For God so Loved the World….. Even a donkey can hear God and speak truth to the religious….
Fantastic observations. I’ve had similar revelations about the parallels of Christian community and the bonds we develop in tough times versus the bonds created in this show. I love finding God in stories, so thank you for pointing out these little nuggets.
I, too,, avoided The Walking Dead for many years. Then last November I watched an episode from the first season and then another. I soon realized that this show has very little to do with zombies. I then binge watched the rest of the series available on Netflix.
I am amazed by your thoughts about the dearth of true Christian communities.
I will enjoy reading your blog in the future.
I have not seen the past season or two but I have to agree with most of your comments. Rick has to make some very hard decisions in the show. It is not nice or easy to protect your own.
Great article, Frank.
Have you noticed a few times in the show, characters discuss who REALLY are the walking dead and conclude that they are, if they are overcome. At least I think I heard those discussions. I am entirely capable of providing such social and spiritual commentary in my own head while watching shows that give insights into society and reveal the hearts of humanity!
Well, I am relatively new to this Blog and I was really impressed with all the information that this article has to offer. I cannot recall ever seeing the show “The Walking Dead” although I have heard the name several times before and heard people say it is about a lot of Zombies walking around the place.
As a Christian who is really trying to live like Jesus here on this wretched earth who is really struggling to do so and if it was not for the Holy Spirit within me I would have given up a long time ago. Your article with all this goodness you have gleaned from looking at the show makes me wonder even more about what is real and what is unreal.
I have to look at things with a different perspective from now, like a third eye, with more discernment and wisdom. Thank you very much, Mr. Viola, I think that I am better off now that I have read your Blog. I will surely continue to read them as I want to become a great Christian, more like Peter or Paul of the New Testament.
Thank you so much for this article!!! I love The Walking Dead and have found it so difficult to communicate to others why I love it so much. And I have often felt that as a Christian, maybe I shouldn’t like it. But all the things you touch on in your article are the reasons I do. And your article has opened my eyes to the gut feelings that have drawn me to the show. And how the show relates to the Christian walk. I will definitely be watching future episodes with a clearer understanding of what it means to me. Thank you!!!! (I can’t get over the fact that someone I respect so much actually likes the show, too!!! LOL!!!!)
Once again, an amazing observation finding our Lord in the midst of a Godless Hollywood production. Not their intention, but the Father has a way of inserting Himself whenever and wherever He desires to reveal Himself to those that are His. I, too, watch TWD and have often seen Christ in many ways. Thank you for digging out the deeper nuggets found therein and sharing with those of us searching for such. Blessings, brother!
I started watching The Walking Dead because of this blog. I, like so many others, just thought it was another Godless TV series, maybe even demonic. I now binge watch it with my my husband with a different perspective than I would have if I had not read this blog by Frank Viola. I trusted his insight. And I see the nuggets. I have even wondered if the Lord approves of us watching shows with curse words. I struggle with this because of my own dislike of them.
I’ve never watched the show, perhaps now I will check it out. ?
I totally agree with this. I wrote a song back in the late 1990’s on this very important part in scripture about the walking dead. The song is called He Gives Life To The Walking Dead. 1 day I hope to share it. I’m in a band where we have tried recording this song live its sort of bush/Cajin genre style so adds some humour in the music. The song is more to do with the Christian then the unbeliever and even though we maybe alive in Christ, we still have to die to self daily, to be filled with our new life of the Christ likeness in us.
I love TWD and have since the beginning, even though I’m not a “zombie person” either. I have told my friends and family many times how I believe the show represents what Christianity is supposed to look like. Sometimes they look at me like I’ve lost my mind, but I don’t care. I’m glad to have someone back me up on my thoughts on the Walking Dead! 🙂 Thanks!
OK A good lesson for me. “The Walking Dead” The title of a show that I would not even begin to consider as worth a glance. Thanks for your window into the inner message of the show.
I have to admit I have been known to sow seeds of discord and impute bad motives. I don’t set out to do that but somehow in my attempt to discuss dynamics or difficulties within a group, I end looking like someone who likes to complain and find fault. But I am working on it. I am learning to think, and I mean really think, before I speak and to also not sweat the small stuff. It will take time and prayer.
Thanks Frank for a really well done article.
I too have seen the parallels to our Christian walk, in the show and do like it as well. I have also told people who are thinking they’re saved that they show they are the walking dead. Not in a mean way but in a warning way, as man there are so many who have been taught so wrong, about Christianity.
When asking God to be made a real disciple, and how to go out and make real disciples as we are told to do, He said to my heart study the book of Acts diligently!
I have been for two years now carefully studying and eating what is said in there. What I found first off the bat, was no one said some lame little prayer that does not exist in the word of God for salvation.
I was blown away by just how much religion has drawn people off the straight and narrow path. It is not a prayer for salvation it is a small series of musts. The first being Repent. The second is be baptized in water unto death, and be resurrected into Christ from the water. The third is we must be prayed over for the Holy Spirit to indwell us, to bring upon us, the Power that raised Christ from the dead.
That is the formula, of course it goes without saying that we must believe in Christ in the truth as the truth. He is the truth, He is the word who put on flesh, knowing Him is what sets us free, You shall know the Truth, and He will set you free. Or another He is the shepherd His sheep know His voice, and they follow Him.
I saw a wonderful little video not long ago of a real life lesson on this very subject, the sheep know their shepherds voice and do not even bother to answer to any other voice. So clear and right. This shepherd had 3 other voices calling to his sheep, they never stopped munching on the grass and doing what they were doing, till their shepherd called to them, then from all over the fields they came one and all.
God is so good. Blessings to you sir and yours!
Thank you for being so vulnerable in your comment. I too felt convicted after reading the post. Striving. In Him. To be more like Him.
This is awesome! I absolutely LOVE The Walking Dead and you’ve hit on so much that I would begin to spin around in my head and spirit in my head but never actually gelled. After recently doing a sermon series entitled The Force Awakens last month and one entitled, SPOCK (Sermons to Prepare for Our Coming King) after Leonard Nimoy died, I have been seriously thinking about doing something based on The Walking Dead. You’ve inspired me!!! Thx!
(And yes, I love LOST as well. I did a Young Adult Bible Study on Lost years ago as well as one on I Am Legend (remember those final words, “Light up the darkness”??)
Anyway, I am so happy I signed up for your blog. This is going to be fun! 🙂
Thank you for the great perspective. In discipleship, I use the analogy of those outside the body of Christ as zombies — physically alive but spiritually dead. Heck, there are even those inside the church who fit that label. But, like the valley of dry bones, our God can breathe life into them. Our job is to open their ears to hear His call. In so doing, we help expand His Kingdom.
Ben Franklin said prosperity does best discover Vice, adversity does best discover Virtue.
Paul wrote And that He died for all that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but until Him that died for them and rose again.
Dear Frank,
Thanks for sharing the 3 important lessons from “The Walking Dead”.
From one who was dead in sins and trespasses and now alive in Christ and learning to be part of the community that builds each other. Thanks again.
You are spot on!